The initial-calendar year football mentor at Mississippi State University has been reprimanded and need to visit a civil legal rights museum following he lately shared a meme on Twitter of a girl knitting a noose, the university’s athletic director claimed this 7 days.

The mentor, Mike Leach, 59, who has because apologized for the publish, also should take part in a sequence of listening sessions to “expand his cultural awareness” of the condition, John Cohen, the athletic director, stated in a statement on Tuesday.

The meme, which Leach posted on April 1 and afterwards deleted, featured a black-and-white graphic of an more mature white girl with knitting needles. Its caption go through, “After 2 weeks of quarantine with her partner, Gertrude made a decision to knit him a scarf.”

But alternatively of a scarf, a hangman’s knot was on the woman’s lap, an picture that critics explained was highly offensive and evoked the lynchings of black people in the Deep South. At least just one participant on the soccer group has introduced his programs to transfer since of Leach’s tweet.

“No make a difference the context, for many People in america the impression of a noose is never appropriate and which is specially genuine in the South and in Mississippi,” Cohen said. “Mississippi State College was dissatisfied in the use of such an image in a tweet by Coach Mike Leach.”

Leach, whom Mississippi Point out employed in January from Washington Condition University, expressed regret around the write-up the next working day.

“I sincerely regret if my decision of photographs in my tweets had been located offensive,” Leach wrote on Thursday. “I had no intention of offending everyone.”

Fabien Lovett, 20, a defensive deal with who grew up in Vicksburg, Skip., responded to his coach on Twitter with an expletive. Lovett reported in an interview on Wednesday that he was upset by Leach’s tweet and was seeking to transfer because of the post.

“We’re in the South,” Lovett stated. “We’re in Mississippi. Things like that plays a massive role in our household, specially black adult males. Our ancestors ended up lynched.”

Lovett stated he was dissatisfied with the university’s reaction and with Leach’s apology, which he explained as insincere.

“That’s the prime illustration of why I have to have to leave Mississippi,” he said.

Mississippi Point out did not make Leach obtainable for more remark on Wednesday. An athletic section spokesman referred to the statement Cohen issued on Tuesday.

“The university is self-assured that  Mentor Leach is moving promptly and sincerely previous this unintended misstep and will supply the management for our college student athletes and pleasure for our football application that our supporters are worthy of and that our students and alumni will be proud to aid,” Cohen stated in the statement.

Cohen reported he prepared to have Leach take part in listening periods with university student, alumni and local community groups. Leach will also stop by the Museum of Mississippi Historical past and the Mississippi Civil Legal rights Museum, he claimed.

In 2009, Texas Tech College dismissed Leach as its football coach for what it explained was his mistreatment of 1 of his players, Adam James, a sophomore receiver who is the son of Craig James, then an ESPN broadcaster.